Founded in 1997, the locally owned and operated City Paper is Charleston's only weekly alternative newspaper and the second-largest publication in the metro Charleston area. Reaching a strong mix of active, affluent locals and tourists, the City Paper has thrived...

More by Dwayne Green

What if the S.C. General Assembly announced a new tax that would be paid primarily by the state's poor and minority citizens? And that the majority of the money raised would not be used to help failing schools or aid students from impoverished backgrounds, but instead be used to provide scholarships to college-bound high school seniors, regardless of their financial needs? To lessen the sting of such a seemingly unfair system of revenue collection, the payment of the tax would be 100 percent voluntary. How enthusiastic would the average South Carolina citizen be for such a plan? If you could rate that enthusiasm on scale of one to zero, I'd say zero, unless the plan also promised participants a one in a 100 million chance of becoming a millionaire.

Instead of rehashing our disagreements about how the Civil War started, we should ask if there are lessons that can be learned from the conflict that are still applicable today. Although the specific issues may have changed, several others are still relevant.

As fascinating — and maddening — as it can be watching the arguments that emerge between the fans and detractors of any given filmmaker, it can be almost more fascinating watching fans argue amongst themselves.

For 11 days in Utah's mountains in January, not a flake of precipitation fell on the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. And the cheery blue skies could not possibly have been a better match for the mood of the festival's best films.

Uncomfortable as it may be, McQueen skips the history lesson and achieves a visceral experience that will surely be known as the definitive moral rendering of an era that should only be recalled with remorse and shame.

Feature films, documentaries, television — you name it, director Michael Apted has done it. The British-born, critically-acclaimed director has accrued an extensive body of work that includes such disparate and impressive credits as Coal Miner's Daughter, Gorky Park, Bring on the Night, Gorillas in the Mist, episodes of the HBO series Rome, and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.